


Discworld100 Drabbles 2009

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: Discworld - Pratchett
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-16
Updated: 2009-04-16
Packaged: 2017-10-05 19:51:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My 2009 drabbles from the LJ community <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/discworld100">discworld100</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Discworld100 Drabbles 2009

**Author's Note:**

> Discworld characters belong to Terry Pratchett.

**Title:** Building Trust  
**Prompt:** Bloody Stupid Johnson

Moist took one look at the paperwork spread out in front of the Patrician and backed away. ‘No. No way. Not this time. I don’t care how urgent it is or how much you explicitly don’t threaten me or what benefit you think it will have.’

‘The Guild of Architects would be very grateful for your assistance,’ Vetinari said.

‘It’s a _Johnson_. I don’t care what historical importance it has. Nothing that could happen to me out here could be worse than going in there.’

‘Really?’

An hour later Moist was on the front doorstep of an apparently ordinary house...

 

* * *

 

**Title:** Communication  
**Prompt:** Clacks

The clacks towers send information flying from Ankh-Morpork to Klatch and Lancre and Uberwald, messages of love and requests for money and urgent police business.

Angua only ever uses them for the latter.

She has no need of money. Living with Carrot means her pay goes further, and living with Carrot means that if she needs to express love she need only roll over and kiss him.

This revolution in communications technology cannot repair the rift between Angua and her family. No amount of contact can achieve that now.

But this is home now, and the Watch is her family.

 

* * *

 

**Title:** Stormy Weather  
**Prompt:** Hailstones

Sybil watched her son totter towards the nearest snowdrift and fall to his knees in the thin layer of slush that coated everything. He didn’t cry, though; he was so well bundled up in various layers of clothing that he was now more or less spherical.

The first hailstone hit the roof of the dragon pens and shattered, and Sybil snatched Young Sam up and dove for cover. Due to the magical energies that rose off Unseen University, any storm cloud that passed over it released hailstones the size of one of Captain Carrot’s footballs. Fortunately the pens were reinforced.

 

* * *

 

**Title:** Breakfast in Bed (plus two bonus drabbles I wrote in the comments)  
**Prompt:** Gaspode

There was only one place to go in winter.

The stables weren’t the flimsy wooden construction that they had once been. Reinforced with metal cladding and then insulated, the building that was stifling in summer was toasty warm in winter. There was usually an empty stall or two, and if not, an empty stall was easy to create.

Gaspode balanced on the partition between the stalls and barked at the sleeping swamp dragon curled within one of them. Startled awake, the hapless creature exploded.

A warm place to sleep, and moderately edible dinner, once he scraped it off the walls.

Sybil heard the distant bang and was on her feet in an instant. Hurrying out to the dragon pens, she scanned the stalls rapidly.

A small scruffy dog was in Lord Bunter Headley-Smythe the Third’s stall, industriously licking what remained of poor Bunter off the wall. Sybil opened her mouth to shoo it away and the dog looked up at her and whined.

A minute later she was trudging back inside, thinking _Well, he was poorly anyway, and that poor little doggie had nowhere else to go. I wonder if there isn’t some fresh meat in the kitchen for him?_

It wasn’t until she had reached the kitchen and was in the process of hunting out some fresh steak that she stopped herself. Bunter had _not_ been poorly. Sybil put the meat back and went back out to the pens.

The dog was curled up, nose to threadbare tail. It looked up at her.

‘Whine?’

‘Don’t give me that nonsense,’ Sybil said in her best talking-firmly-to-Sam voice (it worked on both Sams). ‘You can stay here tonight, but if you’re still here in the morning, I shall let them eat you.’

‘Woof woof give them indigestion bark.’

But Sybil prevailed.

 

* * *

 

**Title:** Intuition  
**Prompt:** choices, choices...

  
Unlike the Ephebian prophetesses of yore, Sybil Ramkin is not possessed of any psychic abilities. Knowing when swamp dragons are about to explode, when to be sweetly diplomatic and when to charge in wielding a broadsword comes of experience, not of some sixth sense.

Nonetheless, she looks down at the ring between Sam’s fingers, and up at the hopeful-nervous expression on his face, and she can see the future. Nights and days, waiting and worrying, meals taken alone...

But it’s the times they will have together that make her smile and close her hand over his and say, ‘Of course.’

 

* * *

 

**Title:** Warning: Unsafe for Swimming  
**Prompt:** Leeches

‘Leeches? Ain’t they them things that doctors use? Little bloodsucking wormy things?’ Mr Slashwallet looked down the alleyway where the unlicensed thief had vanished, sucking his teeth. ‘They don’t sound all that bad to me.’

Mr Boggis took his colleague’s arm and led him down the street to the edge of the Ankh. Their quarry was only a shadow against the dark river, struggling gamely across the turbid water.

Suddenly, something out there _splashed_. It took a good deal of effort to splash the Ankh. It was akin to splashing cement.

‘They suck blood, all right. And everything else, too.’

 

* * *

 

**Title:** Life Lessons  
**Prompt:** The Things They Learned

When the midwife (Nanny Ogg, meaning the whole town will know there’s an impending heir to the throne before sundown) has departed and Verence and Magrat are alone at last, they retreat to their bedroom and curl up together, Verence’s hand on Magrat’s as-yet-still-flat stomach, imagining he can feel the life growing inside her.

In spite of the error with the woodcuts and their shared crippling shyness, they’d worked it all out in the end. There are many lessons yet to be learned, but so far they’ve done rather well.

He may be a Fool, but he’s not an idiot.

 

* * *

 

**Title:** Decidedly Not Made For Proceeding  
**Prompt:** Boots

They were thigh-high, leather scraped paper-thin and then dyed an impossible shade of blue that had doubtless been obtained by boiling some sort of obscure beetle. They looked as if it would take an hour apiece to lace them up and if the wearer wished to remove them she would need assistance from a good strong man – not, Angua thought sourly, that a _good_ man would be caught dead anywhere near a woman sporting a pair of _these_ boots.

She caught Carrot goggling, and elbowed him smartly in the ribs. Patrolling in the Shades was bad enough without him window-shopping.

 

* * *

 

**Title:** Unusual Suspect  
**Prompt:** Running Screaming at People While Drunk and Trying to Cut Their Knees off (charge no. 23)

Once sober, the remorseful offender had been more than willing to be escorted home by Nobby, muffling pained hangover sobs and profuse apologies alike in a hanky. It was all right. It wasn't as if anyone's knees had _actually_ been cut off. The sword wasn't even dented.

Colon was laboriously writing up the report when Nobby got back to the Watch House.

'Chuck that out,' Nobby said, fishing in the biscuit tin.

With a look of profound relief, Colon did so. 'Didn't fancy showing Vimesy _that_ charge sheet.'

'If that was the hen's night, how's he gonna survive the honeymoon?'


End file.
